About The Great Houdini Escape Room

The Great Houdini Escape Room is the world’s first “escape room” — built 100 years ago by the escape master himself, Harry Houdini, as a challenge to 8 brilliant innovators, to see if they could escape his contraption filled room within 80 minutes.* These innovators — Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Henry Ford, Charlie Chaplin, John Philip Sousa, William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Helen Keller, and Luther Burbank — all participated in the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 in San Francisco. The room is now open to the general public, available by reservation only.

For the uninitiated, an “escape room” is a game. You and a group of friends or colleagues, enter a room and need to solve puzzles and discover the secret exit before time runs out! The game is a race against time and requires real teamwork and communication in order to solve the mystery and “escape” in time. (You won’t actually be locked in, but it’s better if you pretend that you are.) The Great Houdini Escape Room is special in that it not only ties to many Houdini ideas and contraptions, but also has unique games and puzzles tied to each of the 8 innovators mentioned above.

Most groups will not be able to escape in time, but those that do get to boast of their escape time and be forever memorialized on the Palace Games leaderboard.

The room is great for company team building, parties, or just a great time with friends. The room accommodates up to 10 players a time. We recommend a minimum size of 5 – 6 players, and suggest an optimal size group of 8. Children twelve and older are welcome to participate, as long as there is adult supervision.